Tag Archives: Employment

April 12, 2012

Where Can I Find A Job?

By Chris LoCurto
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People often ask me, “Where can I find a job?” Actually, “Where can I find a job at a great company?” is more accurate. So in a desire to answer it, I decided to Google the question. Funny thing? The top two searches are “Where could I find a job?” and “Were can I find a job.”

Now, I ain’t no English major, but I’m pretty sure I can see the  problems in these searches. Bad grammar aside, I wanted to be able to provide a few answers to what I think is the most important aspect of finding a job. First, let me say this: If all you want are some Benjamins in your pocket, then feel free to put in applications at any business you can find.

But I believe the folks reading this post want a little more than just a J-O-B. Hopefully, you want to find a place where you can get paid well, get rewarded for doing a great job, and go home at the end of the day happy and ready to return the following business day. If so, here are a few things I think you should do first.

  • How strong are you? No, this isn’t a physical question. What everyone should first discover is their strengths. In Why You Must Discover Your Strengths, I interviewed Tom Rath, author of StrengthsFinder 2.0. One of the shocking statistics he shares is that two-thirds of people do not feel they are doing their best work each day. So why do they keep doing it? Take the StrengthsFinder 2.0 test and see where you’re strong.
  • What are you passionate about? So many of us throw ourselves at any position available, simply so we get paid. The problem is that we end up working somewhere we don’t like, and we aren’t passionate about it. I have nothing to back this up. But I believe if you don’t love what you do 60% of the time, you’ll hate it 100% of the time. Career Coach Dan Miller has an excellent way for you to discover your passions at 48Days.com
  • How do you communicate? It is vitally important to know your personality style. I am heavy into using the DISC profile system because it’s easy and it completely reads you in 25 questions. Once you understand your profile, you can begin to know how you give and receive information. This is crazy important when it comes to winning with people. Read The Missing Link To Your Communication for more on that.
  • What culture are you from? Champions want to work in a place they fit in nicely. There’s nothing worse than landing a job and finding out later that it’s full of petty backstabbing and gossip. When in an  interview, ask questions about how they handle situations to see if it’s the kind of place where you want to work.

With this information it is my belief that you now have a road map to the kind of place you will fit in at and thrive. Being successful in business is only part of the equation. As you get older, you discover that loving what you do it just as important. Detail all of your results and include them with your resume at your next interview. Don’t be surprised if the interviewer has to pick their jaw up off of their desk.

Question: What tips do you have for someone looking to find a job?

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44 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in EntreLeadership, Leadership, Small Business

March 5, 2012

Interviewing, Why Do You Still Do It The Same Way?

By Chris LoCurto
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I was interviewing Clint Smith, co-founder of Emma, for an upcoming EntreLeadership Podcast when he said something that jumped out at me. We were discussing when his company realized that doing short interviews in the hiring process didn’t  work. To which he said, “Early on, we revamped our process.” 

The key is they revamped EARLY in the process. As I travel around the country, I meet leaders and entrepreneurs who tend to have the same thing in common when it comes to this hiring thing— they keep doing the same ineffective, non-productive style of interviewing. They talk to a few people once or twice and hire someone, only to find out 30 to 90 days later the new team member just isn’t working out.

The twelve steppers have a name for this—INSANITY! By their definition, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. As a leader, you have to recognize when something isn’t working well inside your organization. No matter how bogged down and chaotic your life is at the time, all you’re doing is perpetuating the problem when you don’t revamp your processes.

When you see there is a problem, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Is there something not working with this process? If so, what exactly is it? Can I pinpoint the problem by looking at the situation? If not, can anyone else on my team see that there’s a problem?
  • Now that I know there’s something wrong, what in the world can I do to fix it?! What NEW processes can I put in place to make sure this doesn’t continue to happen? Will the new processes become part of my company’s culture? If so, how am I going to share them companywide on a consistent basis?
  • Now that I’ve successfully revamped this particular situation, what other areas in my organization need a hard look? What do my team members think is broken and needs some quick attention?

As you do this, you will find that it takes time to save time. A little bit of effort on the front side will save you a looooooot of time on the back.

Question: What steps do you take to change broken processes? 

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29 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in EntreLeadership, Leadership, Small Business

October 25, 2011

Setting Up Commission Structures

By Chris LoCurto
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There are many ways to pay your team members. The most common are:

  • Hourly
  • Salary
  • Salary plus commission
  • Draw against commission
  • 100% commission

In my mind, the first two leave no room for motivation. There’s no incentive, other than getting fired, to sell like crazy. Many entrepreneurs have asked me why their team members aren’t motivated to sell. When I dug into it, I would find that they are paying them a $45,000 salary. Uhhhh, I know plenty of non-motivated people who would put their feet up on a desk for 45K.

There has to be something that causes them to have to sell, and that’s usually paying just enough to put food on their table. It should be something that keeps them thinking more effort equals more money. Less effort equals food stamps. If you have to pay a salary, keep it low, so they make their living on the sales instead of the salary.

My favorite is the draw against commission. This means that you are paying them a small base, which they pay back through sales. For example: If you pay a 24K base, which is 2K a month, and you pay 10% of gross sales, they have to sell 20K of product each month just to break even. So basically if they don’t sell anything, they only cost you the base that you’re willing to pay as a draw and a bit of overhead, like phones and space.

You have to be careful and make sure they will be able to sell through that draw. If not, they will become desperate. And nothing is worse in sales than a desperate sales person. They can’t sell their way out of a paper bag. If it will take some time to fill the pipeline, then you might cover their base for a while until they are able to cover it on their own. In other words, pay them a salary for a few months instead of a draw.

There is one potential problem with this type of commission structure: if they begin to owe you. If they go month after month not covering the draw, then technically they now owe the company. This is not a good place for anyone. Again, insert desperation. I have made the mistake of changing a team’s comp plan with a draw, only to have everyone on the team owing me money.

Needless to say, sales got worse as the unpaid draw got bigger. When I realized it, I pulled them in one by one and let them know that I screwed up, and I was going to eat the amount owed to me and fix the comp plan. Each salesperson actually cried when I did that. And then, guess what happened? Sales! Yep. They each went out without the feeling of impending doom and sold like crazy.

Whatever plan you choose, it’s important to make sure you’re not violating the law of common sense. If it isn’t a win-win for both parties, don’t do it.

Question: What comp plans for sales people have you seen work or not work?

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18 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Leadership, Small Business

September 19, 2011

Leadership Question: Interviews And Core Values

By Chris LoCurto
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I believe it all starts with you defining your core values. If you don’t know what those are to begin with, you have no clue what you’re looking for in the interview. Without them, only talent really matters. If you want someone who doesn’t gossip, or someone who has integrity, then you have a place to start. I asked our HR Director Rick Perry to jump in and give a little insight on this question:

I try to determine if a person is a match by explaining specific examples of our culture and the “why” (core value) behind doing it that way. Simple process:

  • Explain specifically how our culture works and the core value behind the “how.” For example, if the person is applying for a sales position, we will expect you to leave the cave, kill something and drag it home; that takes focused intensity over time and that translates into making a lot of phone calls every day.
  • Using this example allows the person to respond to that type of cultural mindset; if they don’t take me somewhere that convinces me they have focus, intensity, never-give-up attitude, etc. in their DNA, then I don’t see a match for this specific core value.

I try to cover everything from passion, work ethics, integrity, character, etc. using this process.

Always remember that you can ask as many questions as you would like, it’s your interview. Have a list of what your core values in front of you and throw out situations that would require each value. See how they respond. The process will become easier the more you do it.

Question: How do you discover if someone is a fit for your company?

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25 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in EntreLeadership, Leadership, Small Business

August 31, 2011

Bound By The Chain Of Command

By Chris LoCurto
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Yesterday, we launched the second EntreLeadership Podcast, and it’s taken off like crazy. Thank you to all who are subscribing and making it the No. 1 business podcast and No. 2 podcast overall. If you haven’t listened to it, click on the image to the right.

As part of the podcast, we’ve invited you to ask questions. Here’s a fantastic one from Tim:

Mr. LoCurto,

I heard your EntreLeadership podcast the other day. Very nice. I enjoy something new to listen to from Mr. Ramsey. Now, where I work I am not a leader, manager or supervisor. I’m just a frontline IT support person. In the first podcast, you spoke about an employee emailing Mr. Ramsey directly about a ted.com presentation.  Did that violate the chain of command at your company?

Where I work, if I emailed the service center VP (someone about four levels above me), I would be written up so fast my head would spin (due to violating the chain of command), and I even know the VP a little bit.  If I wanted to send something to the service center VP, I would have to send it to my supervisor, who would send it to his supervisor, and on up the chain.

Also, when you do the leadership feedback meetings, how do the employees know what they say won’t be later used against them?  I could see an employee thinking they would be marked as a troublemaker or as someone who is not a team player if they bring up something that is too critical.

I’m just looking for your input/feedback based on my experience over my career in the IT industry.

Peace be with you,

Tim

Thanks, Tim, for a great question. First things first, we don’t go by our last names. Just call us Chris and Dave. As for the chain of command, I think it is absolutely vital and Biblical. Jethro saw that Moses couldn’t handle managing all of the people, so he counseled him on setting up leaders over them.

Wisdom says that you can’t have every team member bogging down one leader. We recently discussed in one of our Leadership Council meetings that, for the sake of time, we would not bring up issues that could be addressed by a team member’s immediate leader.

The difference between our culture and yours is that our leaders are accessible, and our team knows it. Our leadership team has to be accessible to our team members. It’s part of our culture. Without it, we would have a lot of suppressed, unappreciated, do-the-least amount-to-get-the-job-done employees. We don’t want that! Therefore, our team members understand the need to respect the chain of command, but they know it’s not law.

As for the leadership feedback, we don’t keep a score of team members as troublemakers for telling leadership of issues. Instead, we fix the issues, or we show why it’s not one.

I’ve seen the environment that you’re in, and I know it makes you scared and cautious like a whipped puppy instead of on fire and ready to run like a thoroughbred. We prefer thoroughbreds around here.

Question: How accessible are you and your leadership team?

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14 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in EntreLeadership, Leadership, Small Business

August 25, 2011

How To Attract The Talent You Need

By Chris LoCurto
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Hiring is always one of the most daunting tasks for a leader. Obviously you have work that’s not getting done, or you’re stretching your current staff beyond acceptable long-term limits. You have to spend a ton of time going through resumes of people who don’t fit the position.

Someone will spend a lot of time making initial calls, calls on past employers, calls on references, etc. And that’s before you begin the process of sitting down with strangers, asking tons of questions, hearing….interesting answers, and hoping that you find a gem! Then, if you’ve made the same mistake as most leaders, you hire someone only to find out later that they weren’t right for the position. Thus starting the process all over again.

If that’s ever been you, you’re not alone. I don’t know of a single leader who doesn’t have some hiring war stories. It happens to us all. The key is to do everything you can to fix the process. Tim Sanders was doing our devotional one day and he said it’s okay to make mistakes, just don’t make the same one twice.

We have a pretty good track record of hiring people at Dave Ramsey‘s office due to the massively long hiring process we have. I’ve written a few posts on how to do it right, but I wanted to take this time to tell you about an important element of your job posting that should save you a decent amount of time. It should be obvious that you need to write your job description in such a way as to attract the talent that you need.

However, you should write your posting in such a way as to attract the personality style that you’re looking for. For example, we have a ton of families that take their vacation to come to Financial Peace Plaza. Some to celebrate getting debt free, some just to get an extra shot of enthusiasm in their arm. Either way, we wanted to do something special for those folks when they came in. Our thought? Taking our book store and expanding it to add a large coffee shop with cakes and cookies and someone incredible to run it.

Now, if I posted a job listing for the person to run that, and I didn’t explain what we were looking for in that person, we would have had a ton of resumes from hard charging driver personalities with a goal of expanding our coffee-house empire by adding five more stores within the first year. But that’s not what we were looking for.

Instead, we wanted to give coffee, cakes, and cookies away for free. Yes, free. If these folks were going to take their hard-earned vacation to come see us, we wanted to bless them in the process. Also, we wanted someone with the heart of a servant, the heart of a host/hostess, not someone who was interested in watching the bottom line. Therefore, we needed to post this listing in a way that asked for someone who had hospitality running through their veins.

Luckily, one person stood out immensely and that was Martha Thompson. If you’ve been to FPP, and interacted with Martha, you know she is the exact fit for what we needed. She bakes the most insanely good stuff, makes a great cup of coffee, but more than anything she treats people like kings and queens. She listens to their financial journeys and tells the stories of how we got to where we are. Again, something we most likely wouldn’t have received with a generic posting.

Question: How have you seen job posting fail?

Help me help others. Pass this along to those in your network.

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8 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in EntreLeadership, Leadership, Small Business

August 9, 2011

Should You Be Worried About Losing Your Team Members?

By Chris LoCurto
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The Wall Street Journal recently reported on a study by MetLife that said small businesses may be facing a new challenge – employee retention.

According to the study, there has been a significant decline in employee loyalty. In November 2008, 62% of small business workers reported feeling a very strong sense of loyalty toward their employer. In 2010, that number dropped to 44%. In fact, 34% of small business employees surveyed would like to work for a different employer.

In contrast, small business employers’ perceptions of that loyalty remained essentially unchanged over the last few years, with 54% currently believing that their employees feel a strong sense of loyalty to the company. During a down economy, the study said, businesses with great benefits are seeing team members stay. Those that don’t offer such perks have team members who hope to be working somewhere else soon.

Wow! This concept is difficult for people who love what they do for a living to understand. If the job you do every day is bigger than you, benefits are just that—benefits! But if you’re just working a J.O.B., then every benefit probably matters, especially in a down economy. I can see how lack of benefits could affect someone’s decision to stay or leave a job. Not every position I held was something I loved. In fact in my younger years, I had a few jobs I would have happily left for more cash in my pocket.

So what can be done about it? Give your people a raise! Yep, give them a raise by…wait for it…getting them out of debt! I think it is ridiculous for any company that wants long-term team members to not bring a course to work that focuses on individuals getting out of debt. Of course you do, it’s what you do for a living, you are probably thinking. OK, granted, you are right. But think about it for a second. If your team members weren’t in debt, would they be more likely to stay? Would they be more productive, too?

Studies show that 40% of employees say financial stress affects their productivity. So while this sounds like a shameless plug for our products, it’s actually a business guy teaching other business folks about one of the best benefits they can possibly offer their team members.

When people walk through our building, they always comment on how our folks are happy, passionate and on fire. There are two main reasons: They are on a crusade that is bigger than them, and they are not bringing any financial stress to work. And yet, most of our team is still working on getting out of debt. Go figure.

Question: Have you noticed a difference in the productivity and loyalty of someone who was out of debt?

To find out more about what we offer, go to the Financial Wellness section of our site.

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16 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in EntreLeadership, Leadership, Small Business

August 2, 2011

Bio vs Resume

By Chris LoCurto
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Here is a great question from Colin Haas sent to me on Twitter:

As a leader, I love this question. Because, really, what Colin is asking is, “How do I stand out bigger and better than anyone else in your HR inbox?” That’s the kind of Go-Getter attitude I like to see. So I want something that makes him stand out so HR doesn’t miss him when he comes through our pipeline — a pipeline that had 3,000 resumes in three months.

So is a bio better than a resume to stand out? Well, I think we first have to look at the difference between the two. Barbara Sudquist says it this way:

A bio is a short summary of the most impressive highlights of your background, whereas a resume gives a comprehensive picture of your education and work experience year by year. Both describe your background but the intended purpose, level of detail and presentation are different.

With that understanding, it makes sense to send a bio of the great things you’ve done instead of a list of jobs on a resume. However, as a leader, it’s not enough for me. If I personally saw just a bio, I would immediately think this person was very arrogant to send me something showing how great they are. I want to know more than that. I would also suspect they were hiding something if that’s all they sent.

So what I would like to see is…both! Yep, send me the resume because I want to see your work history, and I want to dig into it if I like you. But a bio would be a great opportunity to show me what else you’ve done, as long as it has something to do with impressing me in a way that makes me want to hire you. If you share how you made it to the last round of the kite surfing finals, I’m probably not going to care. But if I’m hiring for a sales position, and you won a sales competition in your local market, now I want to talk.

Keep in mind, not all leaders are as progressive as me. So if you don’t explain why you’ve included a bio, they might think it’s an action of arrogance. Let them know you added the bio to show how great a fit you’ll be in their position.

Question: Would a resume and bio catch your eye in a good way?

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14 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Leadership, Small Business

July 28, 2011

You’re Fired!

By Chris LoCurto
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Here is another excellent guest post by Jon Edlin. Jon is the Marketing Manager for the Nazarene Publishing House. You can follow him on Twitter or Facebook. You should guest post! Read about it here.

I am the type of person who always sees the glass as half-full.   I can usually dismiss a person’s character flaws because I am so hopeful about helping them reach their full potential. Although my wife says she finds this personality trait of mine endearing, it has recently brought difficulty for me in the workplace.  In fact, when I had a difficult employee, I was so busy trying to develop that employee that I did not notice the rest of my team was suffering.

In March, I had the opportunity to attend Dave Ramsey’s EntreLeadership 1-Day Event in Kansas City.  I took away a wealth of information from that event, but what Dave said about building the right team really caught my attention.   Dave mentioned that when visitors meet his team, they are often amazed at how nice everyone is.

Dave went on to explain that of course he has nice people working for him.  He fires the ones who aren’t.  He explained that if you have a team member working for you who you don’t like, there is probably a good reason for that.  Chances are that person could be bringing everyone on your team down.

As soon as those words came out of his mouth, something clicked for me.  My attempts at developing my difficult employee had been unsuccessful and all the while, the morale of my team had been steadily decreasing.  I wish I could say I went back to my office ready to defeat the virus that was plaguing my team, but I didn’t.

I continued to give my difficult employee chance after chance until I lost a perfectly good team member due to the unbearable environment I had allowed.  It was too late to prevent him from moving on, but it was then that I decided to keep the rest of my team from the same fate.  So I did it.  With good reason, I fired the employee that was holding my team back.

Since then, there has been a complete 180-degree shift.  My team is now working on all cylinders. A cloud has been lifted, and for the first time I can see a bright future.

Questions: Who’s holding your team back? If you don’t like them, why are they working for you?

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7 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in EntreLeadership, Leadership, Small Business

June 14, 2011

Q & A On Profit-sharing Pt. 2

By Chris LoCurto
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David Branch of Branch Contractors sent in a few great questions about profit-sharing. In Q & A On Profit-sharing I answered David’s questions on how to explain profit-sharing to a prospective team member, as well as how to pay it out. Today we continue with the rest of David’s questions:

David – In the probationary period of a new hire, do I offer a higher salary at the beginning, with the understanding that after the probation period, the salary will be reduced due to them being enrolled in the profit-sharing program?

CLo – Absolutely not. The salary range for the position needs to match what the position is worth. The amount in that range that you pay to the new hire should be based on their experience.

Profit-sharing is given freely from the owner/leaders on top of salary as a way of rewarding team members for going the extra mile, as well as a way of incentivizing them to continue to do so. Otherwise, if you want to keep the salary low, but have them count extra moneys as part of their pay, you would need to put them on some sort of commission plan.

David – I hired a guy about three months ago understanding that he would only be temporary, (moving family to Texas) but was hoping he would possibly stay.  I put him on the profit-sharing incentive and he has done well. As it turns out, he is moving July 15.  My question, since he is moving, should he receive a bonus on the 15th? Kinda simple but I’m still trying to get this profit-sharing figured out.

CLo – Another great question. I have no problem with you paying out profit-sharing for the time that he works with you. If the 15th check is for the previous month, go ahead and pay it out. He contributed to the profit made during that time. However, if the he was leaving because you let him go, then I feel you have no obligation to pay him from the profits. Salary? Of course, because he earned it.

Questions: Do you have any questions related to profit-sharing? If not, are there any other subjects you would like answers to? If so, click comments and let me know.

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3 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Leadership, Small Business

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